An outside monitor and restrictions on its funding are first steps in scrubbing alleged prisoner abuses at the Orleans Parish Prison

Councilwoman Shelley Midura is fed up. She says the U.S. Department
of Justice's (DOJ) recent report accusing Orleans Parish Prison (OPP)
of violating inmates' rights is yet another example of the jail having
little external oversight, and how the sheriff provides scant knowledge
on prison operations. The City Council holds the pursestrings to fund
the prison, and Midura thinks that tying prison funding to better
reporting practices is the only way to motivate Orleans Parish Criminal
Sheriff Marlin Gusman to open up OPP to public scrutiny.

"I have been trying for three years now to get involved
by linking the money that we give to the sheriff to accessing
information," Midura says. "How much does he spend? Where is he getting
all his funding from?"

Midura's frustration is palpable as she discusses how
Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman has submitted annual
half-page budget proposals to the City Council with few details and
little explanation — and that money is not the solution to all of
OPP's troubles. "That's an easy way for him to get out of fixing the
problems," Midura adds. "You can't justify lack of funding for abusing
prisoners."

In 2009, the city adopted a budget of $22,766,556 for
the criminal sheriff. In 2008, the figure was $27,753,156. These
amounts are translated into a per-diem for each city prisoner OPP
houses.

In a written response to Gambit's questions
concerning the DOJ report and prison oversight, Gusman disagrees with
the report's conclusions. He says research for the report was conducted
during the difficult days of OPP's post-Katrina recovery. Despite the
challenges and a lack of funding, Gusman writes, "Our inmates have been
honored and respected."

Unfortunately for the sheriff, this isn't the first time
in post-Katrina New Orleans that experts and the media have decried how
prisoners are handled at the jail, which averages a little more than
3,000 inmates a day. OPP lost its accreditation with the National
Commission on Correctional Health Care last year. In 2007, the Vera
Institute of Justice reported on overcrowding at the jail, and later
that same year, National Public Radio produced a segment about squalid
conditions there. Local prison reform advocates say the message is
clear: It's time for Gusman to open the doors at OPP and let the public
see how its tax dollars are being spent.

Mary Howell, a New Orleans civil rights attorney, says many of the
DOJ complaints — a high inmate-to-guard ratio, improper and
inadequate psychiatric and medical care and the lack of a policy to
separate violent inmates from nonviolent offenders — are chronic,
pre-dating the 2005 levee failures and Gusman. She feels these issues
could be remedied easily, but the federal government, the state and the
city have not effectively dictated terms under which they will fund the
OPP.

"Any of the entities that contract with the sheriff's
office could require as a condition of that contract, that the sheriff
enter into certain terms and conditions," Howell explains. "Right now,
it's per diem. So it's, 'We're going to pay you so much money per diem
to house prisoners, and we're going to leave it all up to you.'"

The federal government pays Gusman $43 a day for
prisoners awaiting trial on federal charges; the state, $26.39 for
Louisiana Department of Correction inmates and the city allocates
$22.39 a day for every city offender in the jail. While Gusman has said
none of the per diems are sufficient, Howell says those who pay have
the legal right to demand that the sheriff address their concerns. The
feds carry a big stick when it comes to this kind of negotiation
because, according to federal statute, violations of prisoners'
constitutional rights can cause the U.S. government to take control of
the institution.

"Under [the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons
Act of 1997], the DOJ has all power that would flow from a civil
litigation, including, and probably most extreme of those powers,
basically placing a law enforcement agency in receivership." Howell
says.

That seems unlikely. Even with the controversial history
of the city's criminal justice system, the federal government has never
taken over the prison, the courts or the police department. Depending
on DOJ's aggressiveness, it would be more likely for the feds to file a
lawsuit and pressure OPP into agreeing to a consent decree, a legally
binding agreement that would establish standards and goals at the
prison and would mandate a federal monitor to ensure improvements are
made.

As a city councilman in 2004, Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Marlin Gusman supported an independent monitor for the OPP.

In a 1970 ruling on the class-action suit Hamilton v.
Schiro (Victor Schiro, New Orleans mayor at the time), a federal
court declared that conditions at OPP were unconstitutional and issued
a decree that included population caps at the prison. The decree is
still used today, but it is mostly employed by the sheriff to force the
city to pay the per-diem for its prisoners.

On the state side, the Louisiana DOC has an agreement
with OPP to house some of its prisoners. If the state decided to pull
out its inmates because of constitutional violations, the jail would
lose a valuable funding source, which pays more per prisoner than the
city. Howell says this has been done in the past.

The City Council also could demand that Gusman institute
reforms regarding city inmates. City prisoners in OPP are either
traffic offenders or people who allegedly have violated the municipal
code. The New Orleans Municipal Court handles these cases and, as the
Vera Institute report points out, the majority are nonviolent,
"quality-of-life offenses" such as criminal mischief, tampering,
trespass, property damage, public drunkenness and prostitution. In most
of these cases, New Orleans police officers could issue summonses.
Instead, they arrest the majority of suspects.

This approach infuriates Midura, who thinks the consent
decree has outlived its usefulness and has become an incentive for
keeping people in jail as long as possible. She also believes any
increase in funding needs to be coupled with reform.

"That report shows just how detached we are from what's
going on over there," Midura says.

Howell thinks it's essential for the City Council to
pass a law creating an office of independent monitor for the OPP. For
the monitor to be effective, the sheriff would have to cooperate and
create a clear chart of accountability that shows who is responsible,
for example, if prisoners aren't getting their medications, and what
will happen to them. Ultimately, the buck would stop with Gusman, and
all of the monitor's reports would be available to the public.

Midura sees potential in Howell's idea, but she doesn't
think the current council has the political will to make such a stand.
She says it will take four votes to pass any ordinances for reform, and
that leaves her three votes short.

"I have been fighting this battle by myself," says
Midura, who is not seeking re-election when her term ends in May.

If only she had a fellow representative like former
Councilman Marlin Gusman. When Gusman ran for criminal sheriff and won
in 2004, he publicly stated that the Orleans Parish Prison would
benefit from an independent monitor. Gambit asked Gusman if he
still agrees with that assessment, and he wrote in an email response,
"I am in favor of an independent monitor, in addition to all of the
oversight we already have, and I have reinstituted our efforts, which
were sidetracked by Katrina." If the City Council and the sheriff work
together on such an effort, an open and transparent city jail could
become a reality. Otherwise, DOJ could step in and take over OPP.

As to whether or not the public really cares about what
goes on behind the city jail's bars, Howell says that one inmate inside
translates into many more people being affected outside the prison
walls.

"We have one of the highest incarceration rates in the
world in Orleans Parish, and what that means is every person who's in
there has family and has employers," Howell says. "There's a lot more
people who care what goes on down there than you may have been led to
believe."

A suspect is led into Orleans Parish Prison. The U.S. Department of Justice has accused the jail of violating inmates' rights.